Last week Friday, Nigeria celebrated its 61st independence anniversary. First and foremost, let me begin by acknowledging the effort of our past Nigerian leaders , who toiled and moiled the prosperity and the integrity of our beloved country. Without their selfless services, Nigeria the would have been dependent over and over. The citizens of Nigeria will forever remain grateful for your services.
Initially, I intended to be an onlooker simply because almost everything has been said. But eventually I deemed it a bit necessary to join notable Nigerian writers to celebrate our nation’s day of independence (1st October,1960)
However, it’s a fact well known to us that, everyone has his own way of expressing his “view ” or “opinion” on this great event, because our mindset and thoughts are quite different. It is like “kowanne allazi danashi amanu” this is to borrow Hausa adage, perhaps it’ll be different from other writers.
This piece is aimed to project the condition of Nigerians when we first got our independenc to be precise 1960s – 1980s) and the situation that we’re experiencing now, and how our future will look like.
Now to begin with the point, I may say that the most enjoyable and the best time that Nigerians have ever witnessed is the era of the likes of the Sardauna of Sokoto Sir Ahmadu Bello, the late premier of the Northern Region.
This is because it was a moment of peace, harmony and unity among Nigerians. It’s a moment in which a leader was afraid of treating his people wrong because he believed that, power is transient. It was a moment where a citizen did not know what tribalism meant, they were trained to be good ambassadors wherever they found themselves. Oh! my goodness, how I wish I witnessed that era.
Whenever I wake-up in every blessed morning, the first thing that comes to my mind is, is it the same country that our past leaders lived in we’re also living? Are they also Nigerians by birth? This is because what is reflecting now is quite different from what we’re anticipating from our present leaders.
We’re told that a leader, regardless of the level of his seat or power, should be kind to his people, should treat everyone equally without showing any discrimination. Sadly, the kind of leaders that we’ve are not up to the task, I don’t know where the problem lies.
Nowadays, it seems like we’re having leaders, more especially political leaders, with no quality of leadership, leaders that are always promoting religious bigotry, intolerance, social violence, among many others. This goes to the followers: gradually we’re imitating some of their negative characters, such as becoming capitalist, selfishness, kicking away community service.
Being someone who was born, studied and grew up in Nigeria, I can testify that, the Nigeria’s future might likely be worse than before and the present. To justify my assertion, let me briefly highlight some instances that are common to us. These are:-
Back then, nothing like buying of offer of employment, nothing like terrorisim in the country, nothing like segregation, every sector was doing well. Citizens were given free education, free meals, almost every basic need was affordable to by the poor. But now all the aforementioned are very difficult to access and are not affordable by the average Nigerian.
This could be an indication that those that are going to witness tomorrow will definitely suffer more than people of this generation. If education is becoming too expensive and unaffordable by the common man to and social amenities are can only be affordable by some isolated people, then imagine what would happen in the few years to come.
May Allah restore our nation’s lost glory, amin.God bless Nigeria and Nigerians, amin.
Abubakar Muhammad Sani,Kaduna[email protected]
